Local owner/dog hoping to retrieve title

Parker Fink takes his dog Wilson to defend DockDog national crown

"Drop," she commands Wilson, her black Labrador retriever, and Wilson drops a water retrieving toy on the ground.

"Stay," she says firmly, putting up her hand like a policeman signaling stop.

"Stay," she repeats, walking through a fence a few feet away toward her grandfather's pool in New Tripoli before launching the toy above the water.

"Go get it Willie," she calls out, and Wilson, the 21/2 -year-old "pup" eagerly sprints 10 feet and launches his lean, muscular body across the water to retrieve the toy.

Wilson and Parker's dad, Andrew Fink, all from New Tripoli, are the reigning Iron Dog DockDog champions and are headed to Salem, Ore., to defend their title this weekend at the Stihl Dogs & Logs World Championships that is taking place during the Oregon State Fair.

DockDogs is a unique competition that began around the year 2000 and started to take root when it debuted on ESPN in 2002. Andrew Fink first saw it on ESPN and then attended a session during a demonstration at Cabela's in Hamburg about six years ago and entered his older dog, Hoover, another black Lab who is now 10, into the event.

The training that Fink and his daughters, Jillian and Parker, did last week was the last training that Wilson would undergo before the big event in Oregon.

"Both of my dogs have been pretty natural at it," Fink said. "Their training relies mostly on getting them to sit-say and getting them to chase the toy. Both of them have that high drive that whenever you tell them to go get it, they go get it."

DockDog competitions are divided into big air (highest jump), extreme vertical (longest distance), speed retrieve, and then Iron Dog, an overall compilation of points based on the three events.

Dogs get up to a 20-foot running start to jump off a platform dock and go for the gusto at the toy.

Wilson, who is sponsored by TGF Screen Printing of Hellertown, has been doing DockDog training since he was six months old. Typically he does about 10 competitions, although he did a few more in 2009 because he was doing so well.

Fink doesn't find a dock to practice with his dogs, either.

"My dad has an in-ground pool and we'll take them swimming with us there," he said, "but the only time they see the dock is in competition."

During a competition, dock dog competitors go through qualifying rounds to make it to the finals. Dogs are allowed two jumps per round, with the best total serving as the qualifying jump.

"Usually, because he's pretty good, I only give him one big air, one speed retrieve and one extreme vertical jump per round," Fink said of Wilson, whose logo is the volleyball of the same name from the movie "Cast Away." "He listens to me well enough and can jump far enough to make the finals."

Fink's wife, Jamie, used to travel to the competitions, which have ranged from Virginia Beach to Canada and now Oregon. Jillian also used to help out, but Parker has really taken a shine to the competition.

"Parker likes to travel with me and next year she'll compete," said the 38-year-old Fink, who is a software adviser for Guardian Life Insurance in Bethlehem.

Wilson and Andrew won the Iron Dog title last year in Stillwater, Minn. In addition to a huge trophy and cash, Wilson and Andrew came home with an Arctic Cat 550 EFI ATV that required the rental of an additional trailer to bring home the booty. They won the title with 3,065.33 points, just 1.02 more than the second-place team.